If a presidential election were held now, Barack Obama would defeat Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota, even though the Democratic president’s popularity is slipping in the state, a new poll shows.

Obama’s approval rating in Minnesota has dropped 6 percentage points since April, according to a Public Policy Polling survey of 1,491 Minnesota voters conducted Tuesday and Wednesday.

Fifty-four percent approve of the president’s performance, while 39 percent disapprove. That’s down from a 60 percent-30 percent spread the last time the firm polled in Minnesota in April.

Nonetheless, the poll shows Obama would win by a landslide in a hypothetical contest with either Pawlenty or Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin.

Asked who they would vote for in the 2012 presidential election, 51 percent of Minnesota voters picked Obama and 40 percent said Pawlenty. That’s wider than the 54-44 margin by which Obama carried the state against Sen. John McCain last fall.

Paired against Palin, Obama leads by a whopping 56 percent to 35 percent.

Pawlenty’s approval rating also has dropped. A small plurality, 48 percent, now disapproves of the governor’s performance, while 44 percent approve. In April, 46 percent gave him positive marks and 40 percent viewed him negatively.

“These numbers nicely sum up the national political climate,” Public Policy Polling President Dean Debnam said in a news release. “Barack Obama’s popularity is declining as the economy continues to stagnate, but voters don’t trust the Republican leaders, either. It doesn’t bode well for Tim Pawlenty’s prospects nationally when he has such an uphill battle in his own state.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar was the most popular politician tested in the poll. Fifty-six percent approved of the Minnesota Democrat’s job performance, while 30 percent disapproved.

The survey had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points. Public Policy Polling is a Raleigh, N.C., firm that conducts surveys primarily for Democrats.

Bill Salisbury has been a newspaper reporter since 1971. He started covering the Minnesota Capitol for the Rochester Post-Bulletin in 1975, joined the Pioneer Press as a general assignment reporter in 1977 and was assigned to the Capitol bureau in 1978. He was the paper's Washington correspondent from 1994 through 1999, when he returned to the Capitol bureau. Although he retired in January 2015, he continues to work at the Capitol part time.

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